POSTED: 8:57 a.m. EDT, May 21, 2007
Story Highlights
 "The Apprentice" left off NBC's fall schedule
 Donald Trump decides to leave the show
 Trump to move on to undisclosed project
 "Apprentice" ratings have declined

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Donald Trump, whose low-rated reality show "The Apprentice" was left off the new prime-time schedule unveiled this week by NBC, says the network can't fire him -- he quits.

The real estate mogul issued a statement Friday saying he has informed the U.S. television network he is "moving on from 'The Apprentice' to a major new TV venture," though he declined to elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from NBC.

But his announcement appeared to end any lingering doubt that "The Apprentice," which turned the self-styled tycoon into a television star and popularized the catch phrase, "You're fired," would be banished from NBC's airwaves next season.

The corporate-themed reality show, which aired in dozens of countries around the world, featured young, aggressive entrepreneurs in a weekly game of elimination as they competed for a real-life job in Trump's business empire.

"The Apprentice" debuted as a hit in 2004, averaging nearly 21 million viewers and ranking as the top-rated new U.S. TV show its first season. But the series dropped steadily in the ratings in successive years, losing nearly two-thirds of its original audience by the time it wrapped up its sixth installment last month.

The show's future was cast into further doubt on Monday when the network announced a 2007-08 programming lineup that made no mention of Trump. But NBC executives refused then to absolutely rule out a reprieve once rival networks ABC, CBS and Fox had laid out their schedules for next season.

The statement from Trump's organization seemed to spell a definitive end to the series.

"It looks like viewers will have to wait to see what Mr. Trump plans for the future," the statement said. "But if Mr. Trump's past TV success is any indication of the future, then one can anticipate that millions of 'Apprentice' fans will be migrating to his new venture."

Trump and NBC still remain in the beauty pageant business together. The two announced in March a renewed deal to keep annual broadcasts of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, which Trump co-owns, on the General Electric Co.-controlled network through 2010.

1. The contestants are always from the top 10% of the population on the category of physical appearance - especially for the women candidates - so that means a WHOLE LOT of better potential apprentices were passed up. If Trump is truly looking for the BEST apprentice, then the initial selection would be from a natural cross-section of the qualified candidates. From the beginning (even before the beginning) of any season, our belief in the concept is ruined by this.

2. Trump's decisions are so often debatable and hard for the audience to understand. If this were Survivor, it wouldn't matter because the surprise is what the audience expects. But in The Apprentice, the audience expects decisions that we can understand.
Trump can
- be capricious - just dismissing people for offbeat reasons
- expect things without making those expectations clear upfront, then fire based on that expectation
- put a lot of emphasis in a tangent of the task, that we in the audience don't see as so important
And often he has to dismiss sombody on the losing team when that team only lost by a tiny margin, which often seems wrong.

I`m not surprised by this. The show was got old after the first couple of seasons.

basically

"racism is dead, it died when MLK walked on a bridge and freed the slaves. Now we have a socialist Kenyan president who is not an American and if anyone mentions race they are a reverse racist (while racism is dead, reverse racism is alive and well.) #whattheyteachyouatfox"

The second season was ok, but Trump just got more and more random with his boardroom decisions. He eventually came nearly indistinguishable from the FOX satirical version of himself presented on "My Big Fat Obonoxious Boss".

The other thing is that as the tasks became sponsored by other corporations, they became more predictable and boring.